The invention relates to the field of photonic crystals, and in particular to a photonic crystal waveguide consisting of a row of reduced diameter rods in a square lattice of dielectric rods.
Photonic crystals offer interesting potential applications in integrated photonic circuits. Many proposals have been put forward where photonic crystals have been used as devices or are used to enhance the properties of other optical devices. Photonic crystal waveguides, created by including defect rows in a bulk photonic crystal, can be used to route light within a photonic chip. However, the practical use of photonic crystals is limited by how light is coupled into the photonic crystal waveguide itself. This is a significant challenge because the photonic crystal waveguides exhibit significantly different mode profiles and propagation mechanisms compared to traditional waveguides that use index confinement.